Directions
Please answer all the questions for the two case studies below. Answers should be thorough and complete for each question. Please write your responses in a word document for submission and use the APA format as a guideline. Double space and use a 12-point font. The combined responses should be at least 1000 words in length with individually identified responses to each of the questions for the two case studies or critical thinking scenarios. Use the following information to support you in completing this assignment correctly. Include two references for full credit. One can be the text and the other should be information regarding the company in the scenario or a scholarly article on the main topic for the case or critical thinking activity.
All questions answered and addressed
Answers indicate that symptoms were recognized
Actual causes of the problem were uncovered
Answers indicate that you identified major goals of the organizations, units, and/or individuals in the case
Answers indicate that longer-term performance problems and those requiring immediate attention have been recognized and considered
Identified appropriate alternative actions
Case Study 1: Home Sourcing at Sykes Home
Case Study 1Sykes Home is part of Sykes, a 55,000-employee company that is a digital marketing and customer-service global outsourcer headquartered in Tampa, Florida. The company has over 65 locations in 20 countries, and its employees speak over 30 languages.
Sykes’s Work at Home program hires customer service representatives in the United States and Canada to serve Sykes company clients around the globe while working from their home. Sykes has been offering this Work at Home program for over 20 years, and it is the most experienced and largest employer to provide this type of work arrangement. In fact, Sykes Work at Home is a pioneer in this virtual contact-center industry.
Using cloud-based technology allows Sykes Work at Home to meet client needs without geographic limitations. The company’s well-designed operational delivery platform ensures increased collaboration and consistent support, regardless of the physical location of the over 7,000 home-based locations across 40 states in the United States, as well as in Canada. The company employs email, phone, chat, Web, social media, and digital self-service to communicate with customers. Results reported by the company show a 20% improvement in performance management, and the ability to cut down on recruiting time for new employees by one-to-two weeks over the traditional brick-and-mortar process, thus ensuring better productivity and quicker scale-up to meet client needs. The average age of employees is 41 and the training program is intensive and ongoing.
Questions
What types of jobs are best suited for home-sourcing arrangements?
As a manager, what challenges would you anticipate for designing jobs for individuals who work off site in their own homes? As an employee, what challenges would you anticipate to experience working from home?
What are the greatest risks associated with this job design approach? What are the greatest benefits associated with this job design approach? As a manager, what would you do to overcome those risks?
Visit the Sykes Home website and other articles you can find about this company (include your reference list with your answer). Would you want to work in a home sourcing arrangement for Sykes Home? As an employee, what challenges and opportunities would doing so present?
Case Study 2: The Turn Around at Ford
Ford has been going through difficult times and recovered more than once. The company’s share of the automobile market continues to shrink, and its cost structure has contributed to financial losses. In 2006, Ford lost $12.6 billion. In 2007, Ford did better, posting losses of only $2.7 billion. At the same time, however, Ford’s market shares dwindled and in 2007, its share was 14.8%—down from 26% in the 1990s. In an effort to match its production with the demand for its products, as well as address concerns with its high labor costs, Ford has focused on trying to get smaller to achieve long-term success in the automobile industry.
One of the primary ways for Ford to achieve this goal is to take further steps to reduce the size of its workforce. Ford’s workforce went from 283,000 employees in 2006 to 171,000 in 2013. Ford then announced a new round of buyouts and early-retirement packages to its workers in an effort to cut costs and replace those leaving with lower-paid workers. Some of the offers made to reduce the labor supply in 2013 included:
Workers who were eligible for retirement would receive a $50,000 offer, higher than the $35,000 in the previous round of buyouts.
Skilled-trade workers, such as maintenance workers, will get an additional $20,000, bringing the total potential payout for such a worker to $70,000.
Following the 2013 round of buyouts, Ford extended its tactics to reduce the size of its workforce and ongoing expenses further through means such as the following:
Extending a buyout option for its 78,000 employees and special incentives for its 40,800 workers who are eligible for retirement to retire sooner rather than later.
Offering a lump sum payment for 90,000 retired engineers and office workers to forgo their regular monthly pension check for the rest of their lives.
The automaker’s goal in offering the company-wide buyouts was to cut jobs, reduce its ongoing pension expenses, to position itself to be more competitive in the market, and to align its labor capacity with the demand for its products.
In 2018, Ford announced that by 2020 around 90% of Ford’s sales in North America would be trucks, SUVs and commercial vehicles. The only two cars to be manufactured in North America would be the Mustang and the Focus Active Crossover. The company has reallocated $7 billion of its research funds from cars to trucks and SUVs.
Questions
What factors have contributed to the large-scale labor surplus at Ford?
What impact is the most recent strategic plan at Ford likely to have on the company’s labor supply?
Over the years, Ford has decided to pursue employee buyouts and attrition in an attempt to shrink its workforce to match its productivity demands. Why do you think Ford uses these two tactics? Do you think these are the best options for Ford to achieve its goals?
What are the downsides of these two approaches? Are there any other approaches you might recommend addressing its labor surplus?
